The next morning, I told my mom that I wanted to go to college in the big city. I explained that I knew our finances were tight, but I assured her she wouldn’t have anything to worry about, because I’d handle my tuition costs either through scholarships or student loans. I told her I planned to get a part-time job in the near future, too, to cover the costs of living on my own. She gave me her seal of approval and said she’d see if she could get me a job at a local traditional-style inn that she knew paid a fairly decent hourly wage. Her eyes were full of shame as she apologized for not being able to offer more assistance than that, but I told her it was more than enough.
Now that I’d decided what college to aim for, I had an excuse to contact Kanae at last. With butterflies in my chest, I giddily drafted up a long-winded message to break the news to him…but in the end, I didn’t send it. My better judgment told me it might seem a little creepy and overbearing to say I was already planning to go to the same college as him when we weren’t even halfway through our freshman year. I decided to hold off until the spring of our senior year, a much more natural time for people to have settled on what their ideal higher education path would be. Whether Kanae knew it or not, though, I’d just taken my first steps toward moving to Tokyo.
The following year and a half, leading up to the present day, were easily the most grueling months of my entire life.
As the summer of my freshman year drew to a close and autumn set in for good, everything started to blur. My only real memories from that time were of being completely and utterly exhausted from the cycle of work, study, swim, day in and day out. I couldn’t afford to slack off on any of these three pillars of my life, either, so it was my sleep schedule that took the hit. I started nodding off in the middle of class as a result, often missing a lot of important lecture material. I did okay in the mornings, but after lunch, it was a struggle to stay awake long enough to copy down notes from the blackboard. I persisted anyway, fighting desperately against the urge to sleep so it wouldn’t affect my grades.
When the school day was over, I could finally allow my brain some rest. It wasn’t much of a reprieve, admittedly, because I had to run straight from the classroom down to swim practice. The format hadn’t changed much since my time in junior high. We still swam in the school’s outdoor pool during the summer and did physical training during the colder months, with one day a week set aside to go swim at an indoor pool over on the mainland. The only thing that had changed was the difficulty. Our new swim coach was a real disciplinarian and would work us to the bone each and every day. There was never a single day when I didn’t walk out of practice feeling like a crushed bag of chips.
Even after that, I still had to go to work at my part-time job. I had to wring every last drop of energy from my limbs like a ratty old dish rag to keep smiling as I greeted and served the inn’s guests. It was still an unfamiliar working environment to me despite my efforts, and since I was always at the height of my physical and mental exhaustion by that point in the day, I slipped up on the job more times than I cared to admit. Sometimes I would get lectured by my older part-time coworkers, and other times I’d even get yelled at by angry guests on some sort of “customer is always right” power trip. On nights like that, I would lock myself up in the bathroom for a while and have a good, long cry where no one could hear.
Typically, I’d be so utterly exhausted by the time I got off work that I could fall asleep standing up. And yet, even then, my day wasn’t quite over. I had to go home and study on my own time to prepare myself for the university entrance exam. As soon as I made it home, I grabbed a bite to eat, took a quick bath, and then tried to hit the books for at least two hours each night. Supplementary studying was essentially mandatory for me, as the core Sodeshima High curriculum was not nearly adequate to get into a prestigious school all on its own. After those two hours were over, I summoned up my final ounce of remaining energy to hobble across the room and crawl into bed, where I immediately passed out. If the next morning was a school day, I would do it all over again, and if it was the weekend, I’d either go straight to work or to swim practice. I never gave myself any days off.
You’d think I might get used to this rigorous schedule after a while, but no. Every new day was like a fresh hell. I carried on living like this even so, never giving myself any time to second-guess my decision or mope about how awful I had it. My mind and body were both equally worn out. Never in a million years would I have thought that it could possibly get even worse.
I remembered having a dream one time. In this dream I walked to school, made my way up to the classroom, and Kanae was there…at Sodeshima High.
“Hey, Akari. How’s it goin’?” he said.